Slashgeo

The Bull's rambles blog shares the good news about new "high resolution" data for South Africca added to NASA World Wind. From the blog: "[...] the data this add-on gives access too is 50k and 250k Topo maps of South Africa, along with a very small patch of aerial imagery. More data will be coming soon, when FEF get it uploaded we should have North Africa topos too, also madmppers have lots more imagery which could be made available if FEF get their act together and stop infighting."

Geoff at Between the Poles gives an interesting account of his participation at Map Africa 2006 and open source software on that continent. From the blog: "He was vocifereous in arguing that open source is good for South Africa becaue open source creates an opportunity for the development of human capital in South Africa. He also reiterated what I think is generally recognized that security is not a reason to not use OSS, but he did allow that OSS needs to improve its usabality and that this is the primary barrier to its adoption. He encouraged people to be more adventurous and to use open source because it's a way to help Africa to develop its human capital. [...] There is what appears to be a widespread perception in South Africa that traditonal GIS is too expensive. Part of this is no doubt due to the fact that in the developing world, if you express the cost of software in terms of the local per capita income, the cost of software is much higher than in North America."

In the context of the launch of the South African Space Portal NASA World Wind page, The Earth is Square links to the South African Space Portal. From the blog: "The current dataset includes the following: * South Africa 50k Topo maps. * Africa 250k Topo maps. o South Africa o Lesotho o Malawi o Mozambique o Namibia o Swaziland o Zambia o Zimbabwe * Various areas with aerial imagery. " Somewhat related, The Map Room links to a collection of 16th-20th century maps of Africa.

An anonymous voxel writes "Spatial Data Infrastructure — Africa (SDI-Africa) is a free, electronic newsletter for people interested in GIS, remote sensing, and data management issues in Africa. It has been published monthly since May 2002 and has wide circulation across Africa. Each issue highlights recent activities, provides details about available data and tools, and includes notices about upcoming training, employment and funding opportunities, and events. The aim is to strengthen national SDI initiatives and support synchronization of regional geospatial activities. Past and current SDI-Africa newsletters are accessible at the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association website at http://www.gsdi.org/newsletters.asp. The February 2007 SDI-Africa issue (Vol. 6, No. 2) can be accessed directly at http://www.gsdi.org/newsletters/SDIAfricav6n2.pdf. Note that regional newsletters for Latin America/Caribbean and Asia/Pacific regions also are available. Please pass on this information to others who may be interested. If you would like to sign up for the GSDI News List, please go to http://www.gsdi.org/newslist/gsdisubscribe.asp"

The Fantom Planet blog discuss the announcement of China and Brazil offering free CBERS imagery to African countries. Here's the official CBERS website and the incomplete wikipedia page. The article's introduction: " China and Brazil will give Africa free satellite imaging of its landmass to help the continent respond to threats like deforestation, desertification and drought, the two countries said Wednesday. A land imaging satellite launched by the two governments at a cost of some 100 million dollars in September, would relay images, updated monthly, to four ground stations for dissemination to African states." Several Africa-related stories below.

Early last month the Bull's Ramble blog informs us South Africa now gets 10-m satellite imagery in NASA World Wind [several screenshots]. From the blog: "The data is from SPOT 5 provided by SpotImage and collected in 2005, it is currently only 10m resolution but looks gorgeous [...]" See also related stories below. Related to NWW, we also learn JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, is using NWW to visualize data of their latest lunar explorer KAGUYA, making me wonder about the developments to their GLOBALBASE project. Update: 02/05 17:01 GMT by S : Here's a project called Africa@Home, which, similarly to SETI@Home, harness the crunching power of home computers: "The first application being developed for AFRICA@home is called MalariaControl.net. This application models the way malaria spreads in Africa and the potential impact that new anti-malarial drugs may have on the region." (via Kelly Lab blog)